


Cold Night, Bloody Day

by LupineCrown (Wolf_of_Lilacs)



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cuddling and Snuggling, I'm not writing cat smut, M/M, Major Character Injury, implied open relationships, kinda implied relationships in general at this point, so if it happens we'll gloss over it yeah?, takes place during Darkest Hour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2019-11-15 14:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18074978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_of_Lilacs/pseuds/LupineCrown
Summary: It's just one night.Right?(In which Firestar and Tigerstar spend a night together; then at Fourtrees days later, Tigerstar doesn't quite manage to die.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Came to me out of nowhere and wouldn't let go.

Firestar can’t sleep. He circles and circles in his nest, but cannot find a comfortable position in the moss. Dread stalks beside him, dread for a meeting with a Clan that wants for nothing but destruction. (Or is that simply Tigerstar himself?)

He can’t stay here. He needs—

Goldenflower paces outside the gorse tunnel as he slinks past. “Where are you off to?” she mews, halting.

“A walk,” Firestar sighs.

“Careful out there, then.”

He nods. “My claws are as sharp as they’ve ever been.”

The forest is quiet, the occasional call of an owl and the stirring of the wind through the trees the only disturbances. Firestar picks his way up the ravine, twisting past roots, a fallen branch. Leaves crunch beneath his paws.

At night, the shadow of Sunningrocks is thick and oppressive. At night, Sunningrocks is nothing but frigid, dead stone. Why do they fight for it, he wonders, clawing his way upward.

Firestar settles into a crouch on the highest rock, wrapping his tail over his paws. He gazes upward, eyes darting from one point of light to the next.

The stars tell him nothing tonight. They are as silent as they are far away.

His head droops to rest between his paws. The stone is freezing, unforgiving, near.

There are pawsteps behind him, a familiar scent. Firestar starts, turns around to see—

Tigerstar.

“What are you doing here?” Firestar splutters, teeth chattering.

Tigerstar gives him a quelling look. “It’s a cold night,” he meows, and settles beside him.

Firestar lashes his tail, his fur bristling. “This isn’t your territory anymore.”

Tigerstar blinks. “I’m sure it will be, soon enough. But please. Relax. I’m only here to brood tonight.”

“Fine.” Firestar crouches once more.

“Why are you out here?” Tigerstar meows after several moments of stillness. “Couldn’t sleep, kittypet?”

“That’s right. No thanks to you.”

“Thought StarClan might have answers for you?” Tigerstar rises, towering over Firestar. Firestar skitters back in surprise, but Tigerstar’s pelt is flat and sleek, and his claws remain sheathed. There’s no moon, and the stars reflect faintly in Tigerstar’s golden eyes. “They can offer you nothing,” he murmurs. “You must look beyond them.”

Firestar shakes his head. “What would I find? A dozen murders? Pointless revenge?”

“Yourself, kittypet.” Tigerstar edges closer, and Firestar feels his warmth and wonders…

It’s a cold night.

Only one night.

Firestar edges closer, too.

Their noses touch, and their pelts brush, and yes, there is warmth to be found.

“It’s a long walk back to camp,” Firestar notes as they clamber down the rocks to a small gap, sheltered from the wind.

“Mm,” Tigerstar mews in agreement. Someone has left the remains of a bracken nest here. Firestar wonders idly how many cats wander here, perhaps as sleepless and listless as he is—the two of them are.

They circle. The bracken crackles invitingly.

“What would your pretty ginger molly say?” Tigerstar goads, half-hearted, as they curl together.

“Goldenflower still misses you,” Firestar meows back.

Tigerstar snorts. “Maybe. It was all for the kits, you know.”

“Sandstorm isn’t mine. She’s her own cat. We’re friends.”

“I’m sure.”

Tigerstar’s scent is a little bit ThunderClan, overlaid with ShadowClan: pines and bogs and…it’s not so bad, really. It reminds Firestar irresistibly of his earliest days in the Clan, when he held nothing but admiration for Tigerclaw, when—

Well…

It’s a comforting memory, even with everything that has followed, even with the prospect of battle and doom so near.

They share tongues. (They never have before.) It’s hesitant at first, but they quickly find the proper lay of each other’s fur.

And it is much warmer here.

When Firestar sleeps, he dreams only of Clans happy and fed, thriving, _alive_.

Morning comes too soon. “Guess that’s it, then,” Firestar meows as they stretch out the stiffness from their legs and tails.

“Guess so,” Tigerstar replies. “See you at Fourtrees, kittypet.”

“I’m not looking forward to it,” Firestar sighs. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“But it does.” Tigerstar flicks an ear. “Don’t disappoint me. I know you’re dying to prove how brave you are.”

“I’m just doing what I have to,” Firestar snaps.

“That’s what we all say.” Tigerstar turns on his heel and pads off back toward the ShadowClan border. Firestar watches his dark shape recede, then makes his own way home. Best to forget this ever happened, he concludes. No one need ever know.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so I had to split this chapter, because I have no self-control.

All the cats at Fourtrees—including his own—go silent at Scourge’s approach. Tigerstar watches them, wanting to yowl in triumph, for if he hasn’t won, then they are fools who don’t know when to quit. But—

“I don’t care for your terms, Tigerstar,” Scourge mews, quite unconcerned.

“Traitor!” Tigerstar shrieks, leaping on him. But Scourge’s next movement is too quick for Tigerstar to see. And there is pain blossoming at his belly, an inferno…he pulls away, somehow, from Scourge’s teeth-lengthened claws, stumbles away.

_He is going to die._

He collapses somewhere. He’s not sure where, and then everything fades and shifts, and he sees StarClan warriors gazing down at him, surrounding in a springtime, star-studded version of the clearing he has just left.

“Watch,” Bluestar meows, padding close to his head. He tries to roll away from her, but she pins him with a single paw as if he were nothing more than a feisty kit. “I said ‘look,’” she hisses, and he has no choice.

Fourtrees is in shock. The cats all heave away from Scourge, who seems almost surprised that Tigerstar is not dead at his paws. But then Tigerstar sees why it is he had a chance to escape at all. The kittypet had knocked Scourge away, and Scourge is eying him in something like intrigue. “Have we met?” he mews, tilting his head, his icy eyes sharp.

“I think you’re confusing me with another cat,” Firestar replies, the fur along his back standing on end.

“Three days,” Scourge goes on, shaking his head as if to dislodge any more questions. “Three days, and then you shall meet us here. My Clan is hungry, and your forest is large. We will fight quite eagerly.”

“We’ll be here,” Firestar meows. Tallstar dips his head, standing at Firestar’s shoulder.

“And now you must return,” Bluestar sighs. “I doubt we’ll be seeing you here again, Tigerclaw.” And she pounces, grabs him about the throat, and heaves…

The feeling of falling back into his body is enough to fully rouse him. The pain that greets him nearly has him vomiting. He didn’t make it far from the clearing, is sprawled beneath a bush on one of the slopes. BloodClan cats stream past, heads and tails held high, their reek enough to choke him. No one stops, though surely they notice the blood.

Tigerstar curls in on himself. The wound that killed him is gone, but soreness radiates outward from the spot where it had been. He hisses, lets his head fall forward, squeezes his eyes shut.

What is he to do, now? They have seen him humiliated. Would they follow him now?

“Tigerstar.”

No, not you. Anyone but you.

One of Firestar’s paws jabs him… but it’s almost gentle. Tigerstar gives a soft mewl in protest.

“Oh, so you didn’t lose all your lives like we all thought you must have. That was a deep wound he gave you.”

“Go away, Fireheart,” he spits.

Firestar crouches beside him, pressing his face close. “Firestar, you know. But that’s not why I’m here.”

“Do enlighten me, then.” He feels the rasp of Firestar’s tongue against one of his ears, and flicks the ear in question in deepest…annoyance, he assures himself. What else could it be?

“We need to drive BloodClan out,” Firestar meows. “You brought them here. You need to help fix the mess you’ve made.”

This is enough to bring him struggling into a proper crouch, though he cannot put weight on his right foreleg. “We’ll destroy ThunderClan first.”

“And when ThunderClan is dead? Who will help you drive BloodClan out? Scourge could attack you again, and get in a worse gouge than that.”

“I’ll deal with it when you are dead.”

Firestar rolls his eyes. “Right. Four Clans alone will be enough, not just two.”

Tigerstar, weary as he is, heaves himself onto three paws and stalks toward Firestar, tail lashing. “Why did you come after me, kittypet?” he hisses. “To finish me off?”

Firestar holds his ground. “No—”

“You won’t have the chance.” Tigerstar leaps at him—great StarClan it hurts! —and catches him a blow on the shoulder with his uninjured forepaw. But Firestar had been expecting it, and easily bats him away. Tigerstar stumbles back, Firestar pushing forward. Their eyes meet, burning. Tigerstar swipes a paw out again, but Firestar catches it between his teeth and then drops it to leap on Tigerstar’s back, pinning him.

“I could kill you now,” Firestar meows. “Finish what Scourge started. Lead all four Clans against BloodClan myself.” His voice squeaks like a kit’s, and the fear scent is strong on him.

“You don’t have the guts,” Tigerstar wheezes.

But maybe he’s wrong. Firestar’s teeth are at his throat, going deep. Then—

It’s not StarClan, this time. It’s a place with dark, gnarled trees and glowing fungus and no prey scent. Tigerstar yowls. “No, what is this?” But even as he paces, waiting for his return, he can’t help a bit of admiration. For the kittypet had just…

Won against him. Directly. Had given him a killing bite. Why?

The return is less painful this time, but he’s weaker. Firestar crouches a few mouse-lengths away, washing what must be Tigerstar’s own blood from his fur. “Will you listen to me now?” he meows, raising his head. “Do you really want all the Clans to be destroyed like this?”

“I don’t have a better nature for you to appeal to,” Tigerstar sighs. “I don’t know why you didn’t kill me again.” But the memory of that place without stars hushes him, and he closes his eyes and flattens his ears.

“Why don’t you sleep?” Firestar suggests. “I have a Clan to see to.”

“I don’t take suggestions from you,” Tigerstar yawns. But he must be too tired to ignore it.

*

Firestar pads back to Fourtrees, where RiverClan and ShadowClan are waiting, heads bent and fur bristling. “Is he dead?” Leopardstar asks, hurrying to meet him.

“No,” Firestar replies. “He’s lost a couple lives, and he’s too weak to fight any cat.”

“What a mousebrain,” she spits. “That cat could have taken all his lives at once.”

Blackfoot, still huddled with the rest, hisses.

“Will you follow him, if he returns?” Firestar asks them.

Leopardstar shakes her head, annoyed. “This is a threat that affects all of us, and he has brought it here.”

“Will you fight with ThunderClan and WindClan, in three days?”

Blackfoot doesn’t answer, but neither does he refuse. Leopardstar considers Firestar, her mottled head tilted to one side. “We’ll think about it. You’ll have our answer the night before.” The two of them lead their straggling cats away. Firestar watches them go.

“WindClan will fight with you,” Tallstar meows, glaring pointedly after the TigerClan—no longer TigerClan, he supposes—cats. “No consideration necessary.”

Firestar purrs in gratitude.

(If Tigerstar had properly died, he thinks, how would things be now?)

He goes back to where Tigerstar sleeps, only to find Tawnypaw waiting there. “This isn’t a time for apprentices to be out alone,” he reprimands.

“I had to know!” she protests. Tigerstar doesn’t even stir at the sound of their voices, so thoroughly asleep is he.

“Is Bramblepaw here too?” Firestar doesn’t smell him, is sure he’d seen him with Brackenfur or Goldenflower.

“No,” Tawnypaw mutters. “He doesn’t care.”

“And you do?”

She noses Tigerstar’s side, almost disbelieving. She’s never done it before, he’s sure. “I don’t know. He isn’t kind. Most of TigerClan is afraid of him.”

“It wasn’t always like that,” Firestar murmurs, remembering how popular Tigerclaw had been in ThunderClan, how much he himself had looked up to him before Ravenpaw admitted what he’d seen, before Tigerclaw had tried to kill him…

And Goldenflower must have seen something, too. Firestar doesn’t have to wonder about that one, not after the night they’d spent at Sunningrocks. (But no one need know.)

“Hurry back,” he tells Tawnypaw heavily.

“But you said apprentices shouldn’t be out alone,” she reminds him, her mew going pitchy.

“I’ll take you, obviously.”

He doesn’t have to take her all the way into TigerClan territory, for Oakfur, her mentor, had gone back along their trail to find her. “Oh, thank StarClan!” he says, cuffing her gently on one ear. “Don’t run off like that!”

“But I had to see Tigerstar.”

“Hush, and follow me back to camp.” Firestar can hear her protests long after they’ve vanished into the undergrowth.

Tigerstar, sound asleep, looks almost harmless. His claws are sheathed and his fur lies flat. One paw covers his face, and his tail curls neatly to rest on his nose. Firestar watches him for a moment. Even a monster like this can be a cat like any other.

It is almost strange to see his flanks rise and fall with each breath, knowing that he himself had killed him, knowing that he had died already before. Firestar presses his nose into Tigerstar’s fur, almost like Tawnypaw had done, and breathes in the scent of ThunderClan trees and ShadowClan bogs, but now that scent is almost entirely obscured by the remnants of blood caked on his softer belly fur.

He should leave him here.

Sighing, Firestar pads moss about him, drags a lone, fallen branch over in front of the makeshift nest. Tigerstar can’t be seen now, unless some cat knows to look for him here. On a whim, Firestar crushes the berries of a nearby patch of holly, to obscure the scent of fresh blood further.

*

He dreams.

Of a different world in which Scourge tears him open, throat to tail, and he loses all nine lives in a wash of blood and keening. Firestar looks on, and it is not satisfaction in his eyes. Is it…grief?

Foolish kittypet, he thinks savagely. Who would mourn his enemy?

And yet what if Scourge does the same to Firestar? Firestar is a pest, but he is also comforting in his predictability and…

Tigerstar wakes, shivering. It’s dark, and he hears the sound of an owl calling, of a strange cat yowling. He wishes for another cat’s warmth, remembers with annoyance that Firestar is the only one with whom he has curled up with shared tongues with since Goldenflower.

Firestar’s scent washes over him. It is all ThunderClan, no hint at anything before. And, he supposes, there is no reason it should. When Firestar curls around him, he relaxes against him, and hates that he does.

*

“You left the camp again last night.” Mistyfoot of all cats confronts Firestar upon his return, as he drops a mouse on the fresh-kill pile.

“I was searching for Tigerstar,” he mews.

“All night long?” she presses, dubious.

“He needs to be found.”

“Where a BloodClan cat might ambush you?”

“They’re cowards on their own,” he retorts.

“Of course.” Mistyfoot stretches onto her hind paws, then drops onto all fours. He is reminded irresistibly of Bluestar as she does, and wonders what she would think of his near-treachery. (But it doesn’t feel much like treachery, when he’s certain Tigerstar isn’t mad enough to let all the Clans die.)

Bramblepaw comes racing out of the apprentice’s den, tail flicking in excitement. “Will we train today? I want to be ready for the battle.”

Firestar sees Tigerstar in him, but not as he now is, laid up and weary, but as he once was.

“Of course,” he replies with a determinedly easy mew. “All the apprentices will have some battle move review in the training hollow.” Mistyfoot nods her assent.

“We’ll be there,” she assures him.

“In fact…” Firestar sees Graystripe at the fresh-kill and gestures him over. “Why don’t we have some training for everyone? Kits and elders included. Would you oversee that?”

“Of course.” Graystripe nods, gazing thoughtfully around at the cats already in the clearing.

Training is not so simple, though. Firestar is tired, while Bramblepaw is terribly enthusiastic. “Is something wrong, Firestar?” Bramblepaw mews, shuffling his front paws, his claws digging into the sandy ground.

“Wrong?” Firestar bends his head to hide his yawn, but Bramblepaw must catch it anyway.

“Why don’t you leave Bramblepaw with Featherpaw and me?” Mistyfoot cuts in. “It will do them some good to learn each other’s fighting patterns.”

“Right.” Firestar leaves them to it. Instead of going back to rest in camp, however, he heads back to where Tigerstar lies.

He’s just sitting up to wash as Firestar arrives. The blood caked on his fur comes away slowly, and his nose wrinkles (almost adorably) at the taste. “Kittypet,” he hisses, resigned.

“Do you need anything?” Firestar meows. “I should be training apprentices, but here I am.”

“Like my wayward kit?” Tigerstar’s ears prick in interest.

“He’s shaping up to be quite brilliant,” Firestar admits.

“Naturally.” Tigerstar stands, pacing forward cautiously. Firestar notes a heavy limp. Scourge had caught him a blow behind his right foreleg, and, since that part of his injury had not been fatal, it had yet to heal. “A proper medicine cat would be ideal,” he notes archly. “If you’re so desperate for my help.”

“I don’t know of any that would be willing to treat you—”

“Mouse-brain,” Tigerstar sighs. “Your bleeding-hearted kit of a medicine cat would jump at the opportunity, as would Runningnose, I suspect.”

Firestar shakes his head. “I don’t think you knew Runningnose at all. But Cinderpelt…” It was worth asking her, but even she might say that he should finish Scourge’s job.

What would Bluestar have done? She had sheltered Yellowfang, then Brokentail—at Yellowfang’s insistence, but sheltered him all the same. Would she have done what he was now doing? (Would she have spent a night with Tigerstar, though? He rather doubted it.)

“I’ll ask,” he decides aloud. “Can you hunt, or—”

“Does it look like I can hunt?”

“You could be exaggerating your injuries so I feel more pity for you,” Firestar mutters.

“That’s true, I could be.” Tigerstar twitches an ear. “Not bad, Firestar, not bad.” He attempts a crouch, but lists heavily to one side with a hiss of pain. “Although hunting does seem beyond me.”

Firestar nods and goes off to find him something. There is little prey nearby, likely scared off by the scent of Tigerstar’s blood. When he does manage to find something, he’s ranged almost the entire way back to Fourtrees, and his exhaustion has only deepened.

The things he does for him, Firestar laments, dropping the mouse at Tigerstar’s paws and flopping at the edge of his nest. Tigerstar stretches forward, and— The way in which his tongue passes over Firestar’s ears is terribly soothing, and Firestar lets his head rest upon his paws. The Clan will be fine without him today. They will, they will.

Bluestar pads about his dreams. “I’d ask what you’re doing, but I understand. Just save my Clan, Firestar. That’s all I ask.”

“I will,” he promises, the guilt churning in his gut. “I will.”

He wakes, well-rested, ready to return.

*

Tigerstar should hate this. He should hate that he is dependent upon his enemy’s mercy. He should…

If he truly hated it, he would have left. Somehow. But perhaps that is only his need for vengeance upon Scourge for his betrayal. Not because he wishes to stay. Of course not.

He should find where BloodClan has gone. … No. No, that wouldn’t help. Scourge would finish what he’d started, and given Tigerstar’s current state, he would invariably succeed.

So, he must remain here. After the battle then, he will figure out his best course.

He goes back to waiting.

*

The next days are more of the same. BloodClan has taken residence in ShadowClan’s territory. Mistyfoot and the two apprentices work harder than almost any cat in the Clan, and Firestar can only tell them they don’t have to. Everyone will fight on equal terms.

“We want to rejoin RiverClan,” Stormpaw tells him. “We want them to take us back.”

But would they? Firestar has no idea.

But that’s a small thing, isn’t it? What would his own Clan do, when they find out…

“Cinderpelt,” he meows, sticking his head into her den. She’s sorting and re-sorting herbs, her gray fur rumpled and unwashed, and he can’t help but think of Yellowfang. She glances over at him quizzically.

“What is it?” Her voice rasps from disuse, and she clears her throat.

“There’s a cat that I would like you to take a look at.” Firestar can’t quite bring himself to meet her eyes, instead fixing upon a tightly-wrapped bundle of berries near her left paw.

“Really?” Cinderpelt’s mew drips skepticism. “What sort of cat?”

“Out in the forest,” he replies.

She sighs, gathering up a clump of cobwebs and what he guesses to be horsetail. “The cat you’ve been going out to see.”

“That’s the one.”

She shakes her head hard enough that her ears flap. “Lead the way.”

They make good time, but the journey is interminable. “So, he’s going to—what?—help drive BloodClan off?” Cinderpelt mews as soon as they’re out of earshot of the camp.

“That’s the idea, yeah.”

“And you believe him?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Firestar flattens his ears.

Cinderpelt rolls her eyes. “If I have to explain, then…” She breaks off, the rest of the sentence hanging, unspoken. Firestar trips over a root as he watches her, and she trills in sympathy as he hisses and shakes the soreness from his paw.

Cinderpelt is brisk in her greeting, to which Tigerstar barely inclines his head. “You’re lucky to be alive,” she notes.

“That mousebrain saved me. It wasn’t luck.”

“He is a mousebrain,” she agrees, chewing the horsetail into a pulp. He breathes in sharply as she treats the wound, which has stopped bleeding entirely. “You brought this on yourself, and you deserve worse,” she goes on, eyes blazing.

Firestar is certain she’s going to get clawed for her efforts, but Tigerstar just lies back, fur unruffled. “What does any cat deserve?” he murmurs cryptically.

“Oh, let’s see.” Cinderpelt’s purr is mocking. “Gorsepaw certainly deserved to be murdered in cold blood.”

“It was nothing personal. I was making a point.”

At this, both Firestar and Cinderpelt bristle and flatten their ears. Cinderpelt draws the unused herbs into a bundle and turns away. “I’ve done all I can do for you,” she spits over her shoulder. “Firestar, I hope you’re happy.” And she stalks off, her tail high.

“Did you forget, Firestar?” Tigerstar meows when she’s out of sight, and his voice is almost kind.

“No,” Firestar replies shortly.

The silence stretches between them, tenuous as the threads of cobweb Cinderpelt had wound about Tigerstar’s foreleg.

“Let’s take a walk,” Tigerstar suggests, and Firestar nods his assent. They retrace the trail to Fourtrees, Tigerstar’s limp quite pronounced. He grits his teeth and refuses Firestar’s offer of a shoulder to lean against.

“In two days, this will be a field of blood,” Firestar meows darkly, remembering the vision from his leader ceremony, remembering the hill of bones that stood in the TigerClan camp. Had they torn it down? he wonders. He expects they have. Leopardstar is not the type to leave such a blatant mark of failure in place.

“Theirs more than yours,” Tigerstar replies. “BloodClan has cats, but you have training and proper prey.”

“Not ‘we’?” Firestar snaps.

“Hmm.” Tigerstar pads to the base of the Great Rock and looks up at the top.

“I don’t think you should try—”

“I wasn’t going to, until you implied that I couldn’t.” With that, Tigerstar leaps, the claws of his uninjured paw scraping almost halfway up. He hisses, but makes it to the top nonetheless.

“Enjoy that. I hope there _are_ future Gatherings for any cat to stand there, no thanks to you.” Firestar bounds up beside him.

Tigerstar tosses his head, but doesn’t bother to reply.

And they stand there, gazing out over the clearing. Firestar remembers his very first Gathering, when he overheard Ravenpaw’s tale to the RiverClan and ShadowClan apprentices, and watched Tigerclaw’s annoyance. He suspects, now, that that it had been quite an unusual Gathering, and wonders if the prophecy of fire saving the Clan was… But no, that’s too much to think about.

Tigerstar is lost in thought, too, and Firestar can’t imagine what of.

The shadows lengthen. The rock chills beneath their paws. “Firestar,” Tigerstar finally meows.

Firestar pricks his ears. “Yes?”

“I don’t know what you expect after tomorrow, but I won’t go quietly away.”

“Right.” Firestar knew this, but hoped that maybe…

“And I have no intention of being any Clan’s prisoner. They know what I’ve done, thanks to you.”

“What, then?”

Tigerstar presses close, and it’s such a similar position to that night before BloodClan came that Firestar feels almost weak with the memory of it. Tigerstar’s breath is warm as he hisses in his ear. “The Clans are quite forgiving of impulsive heroism, aren’t they?” He purrs. “I suppose we’ll see.”

Getting down from the Great Rock is far more difficult than climbing it had been. Tigerstar leans heavily against Firestar as they claw their way down, and both of them are panting when they hit the ground.

*

The morning of the battle dawns cold and wet, the scent of Leaf-bare on the wind. Firestar exits his den and takes stock of the cats already in the clearing. Everyone is already up and about, all of them as anxious as he is. Willowpelt’s kits bounce around in excitement, mewling about the BloodClan cats they hope to attack. “Hush!” she hisses. “Listen to what Speckletail tells you to do, and don’t leave the camp.”

They promise not to, their eagerness unabated.

Sandstorm gives Firestar a reassuring sort of look. “What does BloodClan have that we don’t?” she meows. “We’ll pull through.” She touches her nose to his flank, and guilt twists as he returns the gesture. What would she say if she knew where he’d been going? Well, he supposes, after the battle…They’ll all know.

WindClan is waiting for them. Tallstar crouches at the head of his cats, his fur determinedly flat. “Well met, Firestar.” He dips his head. Firestar returns the gesture, his mouth dry.

RiverClan and ShadowClan arrive with their heads high and tails straight…mostly. Tawnypaw drags her paws a bit, looking worried. Firestar gives her a nod, which she doesn’t return.

BloodClan floods down the slope from ShadowClan territory, Scourge hidden amongst the first wave of cats. But they hear his mew easily enough, harsh and brittle, carrying through the cool morning air like a breeze: “Attack!”

In the sudden spill of cats, Firestar cannot find Scourge at all. Tiny as he is, he can weave in and out of the fighting, and no cat will see. Firestar bares his teeth, leaps on the back of a tortoiseshell that had intended to sneak up on him, and sends her screeching away with several quick blows to the ears.

Where is Scourge? Better question, would Tigerstar join in?

Firestar hasn’t spotted him yet, either. Probably for the best, maybe, since he isn’t in best fighting shape…

“Firestar, stop thinking and get your claws out!” Sandstorm rolls past, tangled with a gray tabby twice her size. Firestar blinks and jumps into a muddle of cats, including several ShadowClan warriors, Mistyfoot, and Willowpelt.

When he does spot Scourge—his mouth full of stinking fur and the taste of blood, Firestar can’t do much about it. Scourge skulks near the base of the Great Rock, his teeth-claws raised. No cat dares go near him. Firestar pushes his way across the clearing, but gets sidetracked by Whitestorm and Bone.

As Whitestorm breathes his last, gazing at Firestar with complete trust and respect, Firestar can only feel relief that he never knew of his dalliance with Tigerstar.

And then he’s across the clearing, directly in front of Scourge. “I do know you,” Scourge mews by way of greeting, eyes flat and hostile. “You look like my father.” He spits.

Firestar leaps but then there are hisses of surprise in the cats nearest them, and the fighting halts for the barest second. Firestar looks up, certain of what he’ll see. But then he’s knocked aside by Tigerstar.

“He’s mine, kittypet,” he hisses, managing to leave a long scratch down Scourge’s flank. Scourge almost purrs.

“You did survive. Don’t worry. I can finish what I started easily enough.” Tigerstar, out of breath from his race across the clearing, almost doesn’t move out of the way in time. But Scourge is distracted long enough for Firestar to creep up from his other side and knock his paws from under him. He tries to pin him, but Scourge wriggles. “Help me!” Firestar meows to Tigerstar. Once, so long ago, he had yowled it when at Leopardfur’s mercy, and Tigerstar ignored him.

(And yet it is almost a repetition of _another_ scene, when Fireheart had begged an injured Bluestar to help him.)

Firestar is not ignored this time.

Tigerstar, his wounds bleeding heavily again, pounces and presses Scourge’s shoulders into the ground, then manages to nip at his neck. Scourge spits, his paws scrabbling for purchase. Blood sluices down his chest, but there is not enough of it for Tigerstar’s bite to have been fatal. It is, however, enough to weaken him.

“Can’t finish what you start?” Scourge coughs. “How typical.”

Tigerstar’s second bite is quick, too quick for Scourge to pull away, too quick for thought. And when Scourge hacks for air, more blood pouring from the wound, his eyes fix not on Tigerstar, but Firestar. There is still that familiarity in them, and Firestar can only guess…

Scourge was his brother.

Kin to one monster, ally (friend? Would-be mate?) to another. What does that make him?

A BloodClan ginger nearby catches sight of Scourge’s rapidly stiffening corpse as Tigerstar and Firestar stumble away from it. “Scourge is dead!” the ginger yowls in terror, and flees from the clearing with her tail tucked down. Her Clanmates begin to follow, first in trickles, then in droves. The triumphant Clans yowl after them, rearing up, tails high. It’s a wonderful sight to behold, and Firestar wishes he could enjoy it more.

Tigerstar is almost immediately surrounded: by ShadowClan cats that congratulate him, by ThunderClan and WindClan cats that spit in rage. Firestar looks on.

“He came back, the mangy fleabag,” Graystripe mews beside him, cleaning dust and blood from his thick fur.

“And he helped us,” Firestar agrees.

“Only to save his own pelt,” Graystripe counters.

No, Firestar thinks. Not quite. But he’s not prepared to disagree, not when the Clan is so relieved to be alive, not when Sandstorm is streaking toward him, triumphant. Not when he’s nuzzling her, then sees Goldenflower and her kits rubbing up against each other and purring in relief. Not when…

Tigerstar stands unsteadily, bleeding from his reopened wounds. Firestar leaves Sandstorm and Graystripe, heart in his throat.

“We should kill him now, so he doesn’t have another chance to harm us,” Dustpelt is mewing.

“I don’t think we should decide right now,” Tallstar says. “We are tired and injured.”

“Tallstar’s right.” Firestar pads to the head of the crowd. “ThunderClan will keep him prisoner. We have a reputation to maintain.”

“The least surprising thing I’ve ever heard,” someone mutters, while there a mix of hisses and exasperated laughs.

Tigerstar dips his head, eyes blank.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s not quite a homecoming. Tigerstar is settled into the spot near the elders’ den that once housed Yellowfang, then Brokenstar. It’s fitting, only too well. Bramblepaw eyes him curiously, looking like he wants to approach, but doesn’t dare, given the pointed stares of some of the others.

It’s not quite a homecoming, but it is still home. Tigerstar admires the familiar shape of the Highrock, breaths in the familiar scent of cold earth and oak, listens to the familiar voices from the cats sharing tongues.

Whitestorm isn’t here anymore, and he feels a far greater pang at this thought than he had ever expected. Whitestorm should have died after him, not before. (Too good, too loyal, too…)

The cats in the clearing give Tigerstar a wide berth. Willowpelt, accosted by her excitable kits on their return (and they’ve grown, he’s unsurprised to see), gives him a ferocious glare and flattens her ears.

And then there is Bramblepaw. Bramblepaw just…watches. Tigerstar can’t place his expression. It isn’t hostile, but it entirely lacks Tawnypaw’s guarded respect and intrigue.

 _What lies has he been feeding you?_ he wants to spit, but, knowing Firestar, there wasn’t a lie to be found in the tale he told.

Fool.

He endeavors to ignore them all, and curls his tail over his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. Their mewing is oddly soothing.

He dreams, unfortunately. He’s back at Fourtrees, where bits of fur are scattered, where the corpses of BloodClan cats lie (they were no Clan and abandoned their dead).

“Not quite what I expected from you.” Bluestar stalks from the shadow of the Great Rock, her eyes glittering. She flexes her claws, then sheathes them and begins washing her whiskers, as if she hasn’t a care.

“What did you expect?” He can guess easily, but the silence is oppressive, and he would rather be anywhere else.

She chuckles. “You should be dead,” she replies. “Instead here you are, seven lives left to you and no Clan to lead.” She comes closer. “But it was never really your fate.”

“I don’t have any use for fate,” he spits. “I have always made my own.”

“Or dictated others’,” she retorts. “I could start listing names, if you want. All the lives you’ve cut short, or put in jeopardy. Ravenpaw, for one. Gorsepaw, for another.”

He inclines his head. “I should have done differently by Ravenpaw, it’s true. His loyalty could have gone a long way, I expect—”

“ThunderClan lost much when he ran away.” _They lost more when you killed Redtail_ , she doesn’t say, but the flash of pain in her eyes speaks for itself.

He supposes he should be more afraid of her than he is, given how he last saw her alive and how their last interaction had gone, and yet she has returned to her grooming. “Why am I here?”

“Because no one knows what to do with you, or where you ought to go.” She springs to her paws and pounces on a wildflower that twists about in an imperceptible breeze, shredding it into a pile of petal fragments like a kit might.

He should run off and find somewhere else, find cats that would trust him. Maybe even the remnants of BloodClan. He had, after all, killed their previous leader.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Bluestar murmurs. “But know that if you run off and try to lead somewhere else, we will strip your _remaining_ lives from you, and you know exactly where you’ll end up.”

“I didn’t think that could be done,” he hisses, “else it would have happened to Brokenstar.” The memory of rotting trees and glowing fungus, of dead, preyless woods… He would rather live in misery.

She snorts. “Some of the cats who gave him lives refused to retract them.”

He wants to yowl out the unfairness of this. Brokenstar was a monster!

“But decisions can’t be made fully in dreams,” she finishes with an irritable swish of her tail. “Thank you for wasting my time.”

And then he’s blinking awake in the thin light of the rising leaf-fall sun as the dawn patrol hurries through the gorse tunnel.

Just another day.

*

“He’s not as bad as I thought he’d be,” Sandstorm is saying as she and Firestar hunt near Tallpines. “Just sort of watches, you know? Maybe he’s plotting, but he just seems resigned.” She bats at a pinecone as it drops in front of her, then goes off to chase it properly. Firestar purrs in amusement as he watches. The two of them are so young for this. He was a kit in his mother’s soft-lined basket only two leaf-bares ago, and now… Now he’s led four Clans to victory, or rather helped them to it. He can’t take all the credit, nor should he.

But she’s right. What is Tigerstar’s plan? (He hasn’t dared curl up with him, though he aches for it. Maybe it would be best, if the Clan knows. Maybe…)

Sandstorm comes bounding back, a mouse dangling from her mouth. “I got lucky,” she explains. “I wasn’t even looking.”

“Do you…want kits, sometime?”

She snorts. “Sometime. Not yet. You? And why?”

“I was just thinking.” He’s not ready for them yet, either, but he wants…something. He’s just not sure…

“You and Tigerstar,” she realizes, her eyes widening in what has to be horror. “I knew it! You know how terrible at subtle you are? All the crotchety elders of StarClan could see it.”

“I don’t moon over him,” Firestar protests mildly. “He’s done awful things.”

She nods rather pointedly. “Understatement of the year.” She hares off after another pinecone, a rather smaller one.

They make it back to camp with a respectable catch. Tigerstar is as they last saw him, hunched up and watchful. It can’t go on like this, Firestar decides. Something has to give.

For all Firestar knows, Tigerstar could be plotting to pounce on an unsuspecting cat when the clearing is empty, could escape into the forest. Nothing would change. There has to be something better; he’s sure of it.

He waits until the Clan has huddled down in their nests for the night, except forLongtail, tonight’s unfortunate camp guard. “No one without feathers for brains will be out in this,” Firestar hears him complain as he settles just inside the tunnel, fur fluffed up against the chill.

“Kittypet.” Tigerstar inclines his head at Firestar’s approach. “The Clans don’t give second chances, you know. It’s never been their way. And I, for one, have no regrets.”

Firestar sighs. “Do you have to keep making this difficult?”

Tigerstar snorts disbelievingly. “And you’re not? You should have killed me properly when you had the chance. They would all have understood, in the heat of battle…and so on.” Yet despite his harsh words, there is a glitter of…could it be fear…in Tigerstar’s eyes, and Firest is now certain of one thing, if nothing else: For whatever reason, Tigerstar wants to pursue a different path.

“What did you see when you died?”

Tigerstar won’t meet his eyes. “The first time or the second?”

“You saw different things, then,” Firestar concludes. “And the second was a lot worse than the first one.”

Tigerstar harrumphs. “Obviously.”

Firestar takes a last look around the clearing. It’s not all that sheltered here, and the wind has picked up, whistling through the trees.

It’s a terrible idea. Possibly one of his absolute worst. “Come with me.”

Tigerstar opens his mouth and twitches his whiskers as if about to protest, then just nods. He stands and pads out from beneath the fallen tree, still limping heavily. Firestar leads the way across the camp to his own, much warmer, much more sheltered den.

*

He hasn’t set foot here since his failed attempt at killing Bluestar. There’s no sign of her now. No scent. No patches of blood. But of course there wouldn’t be. That…unpleasantness…was two seasons ago, and Bluestar is now blessedly dead and buried (though no less troublesome). The kittypet has slept here for 3 moons already. How strangely time passes! His is not the only scent, however. Tigerstar recognizes Sandstorm easily enough.

“Nothing serious, then.” He’d said as much before the battle, but Tigerstar had assumed it was due in part to a guilty conscience.

“We’re friends,” Firestar repeats. “Good friends.” He seems quite content with this, and Tigerstar doesn’t press, for now.

It _is_ much warmer here, the nest far more comfortable. As they circle in opposite directions, bracken crackling pleasantly, Tigerstar doesn’t think twice when they press flanks, or when they tangle together the way they have several times before.

It’s nice. He would like to keep this, somehow. Perhaps it’s something about being in the Clan again—prisoner though he is—but he wants this sort of softness.

He feels seen. He can’t quite explain it to himself. (Except that is gratifying, and ah, hasn’t he always craved undivided attention.)

Morning comes too quickly, and Tigerstar returns to his spot beneath the fallen tree before the dawn patrol goes out.

Something must change. Tigerstar has never liked loose ends.

“I need to leave for a time,” he tells Firestar as he’s making to go on patrol.

Firestar’s ears prick. “You’re a prisoner. You can’t—”

“Come with me, then. It won’t take long.”

Firestar eyes him in interest. “Where do you want to go?”

“I would like to speak with my old apprentice.” He almost, almost takes it back at Firestar’s sudden flash of rage, but Firestar’s opinion of this does not concern him (except that it very much does).

“He won’t want to see you.” Firestar’s hackles rise.

“You’ve asked him?”

“No, of course not. Why would he want to?”

“Please.” Ah, Firestar is weak to such pleas, for his head snaps up. “This is all I ask of you.”

*

“You’re mad,” Graystripe tells Firestar as he’s explaining that he’ll be gone for several hours with Tigerstar and that Graystripe should fulfill his duties in his absence. “He could attack you, and there’d be no one around to help.”

“He won’t.” Firestar’s more than certain of that, at least. Not of much else.

Graystripe, understandably, remains unconvinced. “I’ll flay him if he does anything.” Given Tigerstar’s current state, Graystripe may actually have a chance of succeeding.

Cinderpelt, surprisingly, is slightly more encouraging. “StarClan has said nothing to me about him,” she admits. “No dire warnings. No prophecies of doom.” She’s digging up coltsfoot, her back to him.

Firestar mumbles agreement. “It’s almost like the whatever comes next is completely up to him, and they don’t think he can do any more awful stuff.”

“Or they’ve already bargained with him. Seems like something they might do,” Cinderpelt scrapes earth back over the coltsfoot roots and picks up the bundle in her mouth. He watches her go back to camp, not quite ready to follow.

His training with Bramblepaw has been difficult. Bramblepaw is rather distracted, and Firestar doesn’t know what to say to him. “Do you think he regrets the cats he killed?” he asks finally.

Firestar sighs. “You would have to ask him that.” He glowers back in the direction of the camp. “If you dare.”

Bramblepaw squares his shoulders; he looks more and more like his father every day, if it’s possible. “I’m glad he’s here,” he says at last, studying his paws.

Firestar runs his tail down Bramblepaw’s back. “I am, too.”

Bramblepaw raises his head, ears pricked and whiskers trembling in excitement. “Really? It’s okay that I’m happy about it?”

“He’s your father, and you want to get to know him. No shame in that.”

“But what he did was wrong,” Bramblepaw mews firmly. “I’ll always believe that, no matter what he says.”

Firestar huffs in bitter amusement. “For once, I don’t think he’d try to dissuade you.”

“Why’s that?”

“I wish I knew.”

*

They depart that very evening. It’s frightfully cold, but WindClan won’t see them. They pad up the ravine, pass through Fourtrees (the oaks ghostlike in the light of the waning moon, the browning grass rippling with their steps). The moors are silent.

They cross the thunderpath at the edge of WindClan’s territory, and it is also silent, much to Tigerstar’s relief.

“Let’s go to the barn after sunrise,” Firestar says, lying down in the long grass. The dogs have been chained, and they can hear them whining and scrabbling. But they don’t have to wait till sunrise.

“Firestar?” Ravenpaw weaves out of the shadows, almost unrecognizable compared to the apprentice Tigerstar had last seen. He’d been at the battle, apparently, but Tigerstar hadn’t noticed. Or he’d overlooked him, not realizing who he was seeing.

“Hi,” Firestar mews. “Out for a predawn hunt?”

“No, not quite. Felt like something was coming. Guess I wasn’t wrong.” Ravenpaw gives Tigerstar a suspicious look, but his fur stays determinedly flat. There is the faintest trace of fear scent on him.

“You look well,” Tigerstar says, dipping his head.

“You know, I’m doing great.” Ravenpaw stretches onto his toes, tail straight. “Thanks to you, I had to leave my home and find a new one, and it’s much better here.”

Tigerstar remembers his own fear, fear that the scrawny apprentice would tell someone his crime, that they would believe him. So he had done everything to make Ravenpaw afraid. He would have made a fine warrior, if he’s being honest with himself, and… If he’d had the chance to lead ThunderClan, he would have had use for him.

Ravenpaw stares into Tigerstar’s eyes, and Tigerstar —to his own shame —looks away first.

Firestar watches them, his tail swishing, ready to jump between them. Tigerstar nudges him gently. “I won’t tear his fur off. Leave us for a moment.”

“But —”

“Don’t go far. See that spot at the edge of the cornfield?” Ravenpaw points with his nose. “Wait there.”

Firestar gives them both a deeply skeptical once-over before padding away.

“Are you going to apologize?” Ravenpaw mews. “It won’t change anything. I’m here. I’m not afraid of you anymore. It’s all behind me.”

“I am sorry you witnessed my…misjudgment,” Tigerstar hedges. “You were quite promising before.”

Ravenpaw’s eyes flash, and he unsheathes his claws. “Would you like to see?” He crouches. Tigerstar doesn’t have time to nod before Ravenpaw leaps, easily knocking his paws out from under him with a well-aimed swipe. Tigerstar careens sideways and lands with a grunt.

“Not bad,” he notes, impressed despite himself. “Exceptionally quick.”

Ravenpaw sighs, smoothing his fur. “Thanks, I guess. What does Firestar see in you? Why’s he prancing about with you like this?”

It’s Tigerstar’s turn to laugh, and it’s equally hollow. “He’s a fool, but I’d be dead if not for him. I’m quite content to be alive.” He shivers, his foreleg twinging sharply.

“I won’t ever forgive you. You’ve hurt so many cats.” Ravenpaw paces in a tight circle, his sleek tail lashing.

“Nor should you. Seeking forgiveness is for the weak, and offering it is for…” Tigerstar trails off, confused.

Ravenpaw snorts. “Firestar is too good sometimes. Don’t ruin him.”

“I doubt I could.”

Firestar comes trotting back to them. “Are you finished?”

They dip their heads.

“Oh, thank StarClan. It’s freezing out here, and I haven’t got my leaf-bare fur yet.”

He has a point. “May we rest in somewhere warm around here for a couple hours?” Tigerstar asks, not quite sure what to expect.

Ravenpaw nods his head in the direction of a shed, a ways from the barn. “Sorry, Firestar. I’d offer the barn but…”

“I understand.” Firestar sighs.

“There are some mice in there. The two-legs keep some extra hay.”

“Right. It’s where WindClan slept.” Firestar gazes off for a moment. “Things were…different then.”

Quite an understatement, Tigerstar thinks.

*

On their way back to camp after a few hours’ rest and a couple unseasonably plump mice, Firestar and Tigerstar run into Tawnypaw as they’re passing through Fourtrees. She’s pacing about agitatedly. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she mews. “Bramblepaw said you’d gone, and I didn’t want to go to the camp.”

“Is something the matter?” Firestar asks. She stops pacing and hunches, studying a bear patch of earth and scraping her long claws over it.

“No. Blackfoot’s gone to Highstones, and I wanted to talk to you while he was gone.”

“To me?” Tigerstar wonders.

“No, to Firestar.” She looks up now, resorting to clawing with her back paws.

“Go on, then.” Firestar purrs, but she doesn’t seem reassured.

“I’m staying in ShadowClan. I wanted to go there to be my own cat, and maybe I can. And I like it there. And—”

“That’s fine with me.” Firestar feels a twinge of disappointment. Tigerstar just nods at her, but he gives her nothing more than that. And she hurries off, back to the pine forest from which she came.

“Fox dung!” Tigerstar snaps as soon as she’s out of sight. “Blackfoot doesn’t deserve them, doesn’t deserve her.”

“I’m sorry,” Firestar mews, “but she may find a place there. And maybe even lead. ShadowClan seems to like outsiders.”

“That they do.” Tigerstar seems lost in thought, before he continues. “StarClan vowed to take my lives from me if I fled.” Tigerstar isn’t looking at him. “I have no choice but to stay. I don’t know what I’ll do here, but—”

“Help make a better Clan,” Firestar suggests. “You should be dead, but yu have a second chance somehow. Try and make the best of it. A lot of cats are dead because of you. Try and make things better for the rest.”

“We’ll never agree on everything, kittypet.”

Firestar snorts. “Yeah, I expect not.”

“But living is better than what I saw the second time I died. Anywhere would be better.”

“Then let’s go,” Firestar mews, “and make sure you don’t end up there.”

They press close and walk back to camp, tails twined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. This sort of ended up as a prologue to a longer work I won't ever write. Blame my need for open endings. I hope it's satisfying enough.


End file.
